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Friday Top 5: Rules of Play dating

When I was growing up, there weren’t such things as play dates. If you wanted to play with other kids it wasn’t as neatly wrapped up as your mom calling their mom and setting up a time for mutually beneficial social activity. We would go out on the street and see who else was out there. If you wanted to play the same game, it was on. If not, you compromised or went back inside. Simple as that.

So, when my seven-year old asks me if she can have a play date with one of her little friends, I’m about as lost with the concept as I can be, with trying to come up with activities for her and her friends. I rack my brains to come up with ideas for that mutually beneficial social activity, but I’m clueless. Being here is not quite like when I grew up on the streets of Philadelphia. The houses are farther apart, the kids are few and far between, and most play date mates need to either be driven to our house or we need to drive to theirs.

There are rules to play dates that I’ve noticed apply before the date even begins: Continue reading “Friday Top 5: Rules of Play dating”

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What the Ground Revealed

The street was longer than most, I always thought, as I walked down the unending sidewalk that wasn’t even broken up by cracks from normal wear and tear. It seemed to stretch into tomorrow with its meandering gait that was anything but straight. And I walked it every day on my way to buy orange … Continue reading What the Ground Revealed

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Memories

A window Open to the breeze Falling in on papers As they scatter And slide apart A boy chases them As they dance Some near and some far Crumpled by small hands White as snow Focused on their task Instead of his meal Noontime and lazy Left on the table Falling apart His mother praying … Continue reading Memories

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Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection

This one’s a classic.

When I was young, I couldn’t stand my sister, Joy, for a multitude of reasons. First, she was older than me, so she felt like she could lord it over me from sunup till sundown. Secondly, she was outgoing so she made friends easily, which was something I was hard-pressed to do. In fact, my only real friend from birth until eighth grade was one boy who I thought felt sorry for me, or some of my sister’s friends who also seemed to feel bad for me.

Because she was older than me (by fifteen months), Joy was always in the grade ahead of mine, and because we went to a small school where each grade level was taught by one teacher, she would always get the same teachers right before I got there. And saying that Joy was good in school was a massive understatement. I lost count of all the times, on the first day of each school year, when the teacher would look at me, look at my last name on the sheet, and have this look on his/her face that said, “Oh, you’re HER brother!” Then, when I wasn’t as motivated as she was, they would shake their heads and make tsking sounds, like I had disappointed them. Continue reading “Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection”